The Woodland City Council voted to include the entirety of the Woodland Bottoms into its area for growth planning, following a yearslong discussion on how the land should be looked at for future development.
During its Sept. 19 meeting, the council voted 6-0 to adopt a comprehensive land use plan map including an urban growth area that extends from city limits to the Lewis and Columbia rivers. The extension lists nearly all of the land to the south of city limits east of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks as residential. West of the tracks will remain zoned for its current use under Cowlitz County planning, according to a map from the city.
The land in question is not currently a part of the city, but the extension of the urban growth area allows it to be considered for annexation under the state Growth Management Act. Although Cowlitz County does not use the act in its planning efforts, Woodland does, much like Clark County to the city’s south.
Officials from both the local school and fire districts spoke at the meeting as they advocated for the planning changes as it related to impact fees.
Woodland Public Schools Superintendent Michael Green said any residential development both in and outside of the city planning requirements result in a greater strain on the district’s capacity. The school district currently receives impact fees within city limits and Clark County but not in unincorporated Cowlitz County since they don’t plan under the state Growth Management Act.
“Houses bring a whole lot of kids, apartments bring a whole lot of kids to our schools, and we are virtually out of space in our current schools as we speak today,” Green said.
He said to expand that capacity will require a bond with voter approval for a fourth elementary school in the district, alongside impact fees.
Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue Division Chief Mike Jackson expressed concerns with substantial growth outside of city limits. Although the district generally follows city limits for its area of response, it does have mutual aid agreements with surrounding agencies like Cowlitz County Fire District 1.
That district has a predominately volunteer firefighter force, which presents a service disparity regarding mutual aid. Jackson said CCFR responded to aid them 66 times whereas Cowlitz 1 responded to aid CCFR only two times in 2021. Response to that district is “substantially more” than other districts with a similar agreement, including the city of Vancouver, Battle Ground and the urban area north of Vancouver city limits.
“It’s a little bit more reciprocal and even based as far as response back and forth,” Jackson said about the other districts.
The decision to change the comprehensive plan map comes two weeks after the city council decided to rescind old resolutions that more or less bound the city to county planning. In 2018, the city received a number of applications to expand its urban growth area, though based on those past resolutions, the council ultimately decided it couldn’t make the change.
“In 1981, the city probably didn’t have a planner and the county did,” said Travis Goddard, Woodland’s community development director at the Sept. 19 meeting. “And in 1981 there was no growth management legislation.”
Since the time the city dropped consideration of those changes in 2019, Goddard believes the city’s current planning process allows the city to move ahead with planning outside of those resolutions. In the city’s 2016 comprehensive plan update it relied on planning under the state’s Growth Management Act and didn’t reference the past resolutions like previous plan updates did, according to a staff report.
“It provides a structure for us to do what’s best for our citizens (and) Cowlitz County doesn’t have those benefits,” Goddard said about the city’s Growth Management Act planning.
Now the city has moved forward based on the prior applications to include the entirety of the Woodland Bottoms within its growth area.
Goddard admitted the county could put Woodland into a “legal quagmire” if disagreements about their decisions continue.
“They could argue that (our decisions carry) no water, and just because we decided to plan for a civilization on the move, they are in no obligation to comply with what we want,” Goddard said.
Goddard noted the city has retained an outside lawyer in order to work through the repercussions of their decision regarding the split.
“I am going to start commenting on developments like we have all the power invested in us by the Growth Management Act,” Goddard said. “We’re going to start poking the bear with more than just our finger if we can get away with it.”
